…according to Nandlall’s 2015 advice

A correspondence between former Attorney General Anil Nandlall and representative of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), Sophie Makonnen in 2015, has revealed contradictions with the People’s Progressive Party/Civic’s (PPP/C’s) current push for the Cabinet to resign.
In a letter written on February 4, 2015, to former Minister of Finance, Ashni Singh, Nandlall detailed to his colleague the communications he had with Makonnen in response to her questions on how the state of the then government would affect their relations with the bank.

The communication took place around the period when the Opposition [now government], had moved a no-confidence motion against the then PPP government which, instead of debating it, prorogued the Parliament.
Makonnen had questioned whether the Constitution and Laws of Guyana required a formal proclamation dissolving Parliament in order to announce new General Elections and, if so, what would be the required timing of such a proclamation.

To this, Nandlall responded: “The short answer is ‘no’. Article 61 of the Constitution provides ….that an election of members of the National Assembly shall be held on such day within three months after every dissolution of Parliament, as the President shall appoint by proclamation…’”.

Although Nandlall came to this conclusion just a few years ago, these are not the sentiments now shared by his party leader Bharrat Jagdeo.
Jagdeo has widely been reported in the media as demanding that Cabinet resign while stating that the government should take up the role of a “caretaker government”.

Also, Attorney-at-Law Kamal Ramkarran, when the first of three constitutional cases was heard by Chief Justice Roxane George-Wiltshire on the no-confidence motion on January 23, 2019, had argued for the same on behalf of his client, Christopher Ram.

However, Attorney General Basil Williams rebutted the arguments, stating that Articles 106 (6) and 106(7) of the Constitution ought to be interpreted together and to do otherwise would be a “recipe for anarchy”.
He submitted to the Court that, in the two Articles, ‘Cabinet’ and ‘government’ were used interchangeably and, as such, the government must continue to govern the country without limitation as failure to do such would result in chaos.

“There is no chaos because the government remains in office. The President remains the President and the ministers remain ministers of government,” he reasoned.

Further contradictions have been exposed in Nandlall’s letter in which he acknowledged that provisions of Article 106 (7) of the Constitution which state that, under the current political circumstances, elections should be held within three months “or such longer period as the National Assembly shall, by resolution supported by not less than two-thirds of the votes of all the elected members of the National Assembly, determine”.

This contradicts Nandlall’s arguments to the court on recent occasions that the government could continue to function as caretaker save for the Cabinet.

In the letter, he wrote: “Therefore, while the dissolution of Parliament must precede the elections, there is no requirement which mandates the dissolution of Parliament to precede the announcement of the date for those elections. In other words, the announcement of the date for elections can be made at any time, however, Parliament must be dissolved within three months of that date.”

His correspondence to Makonnen also answered the question of whether the dissolution of Parliament would affect the government’s authority to enter into new grant and loan agreements with the Bank.
Consistent with his previous response, Nandlall denied that such would occur.

“As indicated above, the said proclamation is unnecessary. In any event, under the Westminster Constitutional model, an Executive Government continues in office with unaltered powers until a new Executive Government assumes office. This principle of continuity of the Executive remains unaffected by the dissolution of Parliament. Therefore, dissolution of Parliament does not affect the authority of the government to enter into a new loan or grant agreements, unless of course the agreement expressly requires the input of the Parliament,” he said.

The former minister also went on to assure that the status of the Parliament, at the time, would not affect the government’s authority to request and receive disbursements of resources related to budget support, investment loan operations, investment grants and non-reimbursable technical cooperation operations.

Justice George has committed to ruling on the legal challenges of the no-confidence vote today, January 31, 2019.